Post/Author/DateTime	Post
plaguewraith 01-07-08, 04:03 PM	i need an idea for my totemist's background, he's an azurin with healing soul and expanded soulmeld capacity. he can also read and write.
The_Mess 01-15-08, 01:43 AM	Interestingly, I thought of such an idea earlier tonight, and then ran into your post by coincidence. How about a sociologist-type who spends so much time studying a "primitive" culture that he "goes native" and turns his back on the big city to get back to nature, a la Sean Connery's character in Medicine Man. Alternately, he doesn't have to be a former intellectual. He could just be someone fed up with city life or otherwise fleeing it (maybe to escape criminal charges) and ends up as far from the authorities as he can get. Perhaps the character's parents were from divergent backgrounds, one a civilized trader, the other more tribal. The character would have some experience in both worlds. Or flip those around, have the chief of the tribe decide his son needs to be educated in the larger world so that he can better understand the encrouching cultures. Some of these could sound stereotyped without careful handling, though. As always, the best defense is more detail!
The_Shaman 01-16-08, 08:22 PM	I think the unwilling shtick can work here as well. Incarnum has to deal with souls, in the basic form, or the stuff souls are made from. Perhaps your character was just born with an attunement to the souls of animals and beasts, or perhaps s/he developed it from an encounter with one. Yet imo even this is unnecessary. To wield the power of some of the most majestic and, well, powerful creatures throughout the world - why would you not want to do it? Even the most jaded city-dweller can't help but be impressed by the sight of a raging lamia or a soaring pegasus.
The_Mess 01-16-08, 11:01 PM	Yes, but would he remain a city-dweller for long? I doubt someone manifesting raw animal rage is going to have neighbors comfortable with his presence.
Terjon of the Blue Rose 01-17-08, 12:16 AM	Born in the city of _______ I longed for something more. I would dream of adventure and the freedom it could bring. Yet I was not meant for such. I was meant to learn books and numerbs, apprenticed to a money-changer I watched heros travel through our shop trading foreign coin for local and selling off artifacts and the like from lands too distant to fathom. Then one day I met the druid. I had met others before... they prefer to stay away from the city and its dealings but we were one of the shops they had to deal with. He barely noticed me but his companions enraptured me. He traveled not with other men but with amazing beasts. The nobility of his companion the lamia astounded me and while he rode the pegasus as though it were a mount he spoke to it as if it were a friend. I started taking all my time in the local libraries. I studied the beast of the world and found a strange connection to them. I felt as if though I were in part they and they were in part myself. I learned to emulate their most human aspects and eventually even that which was not human. I have been fired from my job but that matters little now. Communing with the spirits has taught me more of the world than I could ever have learned in simple libraries. Now I travel, seeking to learn from and of the great creatures of the world. Seeking out the souls which have shaped my own.
The_Shaman 01-17-08, 07:26 AM	Yes, but would he remain a city-dweller for long? I doubt someone manifesting raw animal rage is going to have neighbors comfortable with his presence. Sure, although you could say the same about barbarians, warlocks, or even sorcerers/wizards. Many adventuring classes don't make good neighbors ;)
The_Mess 01-17-08, 11:05 AM	Can and do! Why do you think they sleep outside so much? One of my campaigns even had a standing joke about inns always being on the outside of a town so that the inevitable "Monsters attack the heroes while they sleep" did as little damage as possible to residents.